I’m going to tell you something not very important, but you’re still reading, so let’s talk about it anyway. It occurs to me that simply writing about and complaining about things is not all that great of a thing. And while that isn’t exactly my intention, a look back shows that I’m doing just that. Sure, I cover a few topics here or there and talk about this and that, but I’m still just sitting in my corner whining. And it comes with the risk of essentially being that stereotype that was joked about in days of old, “That kid who whines and complains on his myspace” or emo child or whatever.

So I’m going to explain a little bit about my topics and so on.

Subject Matter? Not going to change. In fact, nothing is going to change. The title lied to you.

What I am hoping to explain now is how things change. Simply put, I could write and rave about all these things privately. Write them all up in a word document or post them on a private blog and never give anyone the link. That said, I did give someone the link. I gave a very small number of people the link to this blog. I don’t think it’s a cry for help. I sure hope it’s not, seeing as that’s not my intention, but eh. What it is (what it is intended to be), I think, is something else. The intention that I think I’ve been writing with is more of an explanation. About me.

I’m a liar by nature. I’m not too great at telling the truth or being honest and I’m a coward more than anything else. I highly doubt anyone will really ever ‘get’ me (as pathetic as that sounds), but what I write gives you a chance to understand what goes through my head sometimes. To have a little bit more insight into the kind of person I am. To explain myself and give a little bit of trust.

But that’s not quite right. I wrote that as if I was doing you a favor. The reality is that it’s not that I’m letting you in. It’s the reverse. I’m giving you a little part of me and asking this favor in return. Please try and understand.

You, who is reading this right now, are the one doing me a favor.

And while I cannot promise anything, I hope to do my best at doing… whatever it is I’m doing. Explaining part of me. Giving a little commentary. Who knows. Just one last thing before you go. While I thank you for reading, please do keep in mind that I gave this link to you. I didn’t post it publicly, I kept it hidden. Because I’m a coward, I’m asking you to hide my cowardly self from everyone else. This is just for you, my few readers.

I’m realizing, rather distinctly, that I am alone. And I don’t trust anyone.

It’s not that they’re people who can’t be trusted. I wish it was that simple. Rather, it’s my own incompetence, my own cowardice, my own weakness.

I’m tired of being me, but I’m equally tired of pretending to be someone else. I get the feeling that I’m just tired of living. Of reaching for something that’s not there, of pretending to be someone normal, someone reasonable, someone who just isn’t me.

I will never be the person I imagine myself to be. I have no idea who I am, and perhaps that’s the problem. How can a lying cheat remove his mask if there’s nothing underneath? Not even a face. Not even a name.

I spent the whole night listening to Broken Moon, watching HIMYM, and questioning where I’m going, where I’ve been, and where I am now.

…I don’t really know. I can barely remember what I’ve done, who I used to be, or any part of what made me, me. I don’t remember graduation well, I don’t really recall my first year of high school, I can’t imagine my life. Right now, I have an hour before I need to leave for class and I have absolutely no idea of anything.

I don’t want to grow up and, five years from now, wonder if I’ll still be this alone, this confused, and this… empty. There’s nothing in my past, there’s nothing in my future, and my present is all one big hoax I’ve created to pretend to myself that I mean something. That I’m worth something.

But I know that if I disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn’t matter. You might be sad. You might even cry, but you’ll move on. Everyone moves on. I don’t want your fake tears. I don’t want your fake sympathy.

But that’s all I can do. I can only say things I don’t want, things I am not… I can’t describe myself in terms of who I am, I can only set limits on what I’m not. I don’t remember the last time I could openly talk about myself, speak honestly, to be truthful.

I’ve even sunk so low as to create fake names and stories for myself, simply because I don’t like who I am and what I am. So is that it then? I wonder, I wonder, I wonder…

Of course, I couldn’t post this on facebook. I couldn’t post this anywhere but here, where I know almost no one will see it. I don’t know if I’m hoping no one reads it or not. I just… don’t know.

And this is just a fantastic first post after a whole… over half a year of not writing. This blog was supposed to mean something. It was supposed to be something more than me just whining about how I don’t like my life, even though it’s great. It was supposed to do something, but nothing’s happening. Because I don’t want anyone to read it. Because I need somewhere to visibly complain and I don’t want anyone to worry. Because something needs to happen, but I don’t know what. This place will just fill up, more and more and more, with all the useless things that don’t do anyone good. Rather than Indistinct Snow, perhaps it’d be better to call it a Trash Dump. A place where your heart goes to die.

It’s 3:30 in the morning and I’m on my fifth draft of this post. Just what exactly am I doing… So once more, you all can see the lack of a beginning that seems to start off my posts. I’ve been sitting here since 1:00, surveying the darkness around me and wondering just what it was I wanted to say. I suppose I sealed this blog’s end with my last post, the one prior to Chapter Zero. I talked about Cowardice, and in specific, my own cowardice. I said things I probably shouldn’t have, I mentioned parts of me that are better kept hidden. I don’t know why this is here anymore. Why am I writing? Am I writing for myself anymore? Was I ever writing for myself?

Just what am I doing. I’m not sure if I’m even telling the truth. As I read back on what I’ve said and wrote, what I’ve told people, I feel like a fool. I don’t just change my mind, I lie. Without even realizing, I deceive, trick, and cheat people. I’m not even sure if 10% of what comes out of my mouth is plain, simple, honest. I feel as though 90% of what I say is complete bullshit, a lie, or provocation. I don’t know if what I’m feeling now is what I should be feeling or what I’m actually feeling. Everything seems out of place. I sealed everything when I wrote ‘Cowardice’, speaking in a tainted view. What foolishness.

At a certain point, this blog turned from observation of the world about me, personal opinions and more far-reaching topics, to something more introspective, and eventually it devolved into foolish whining. As if writing about it would do anything. As if writing about anything will have a benefit. Not in a closed off, hidden blog. Not one that very few people can see. Just what was I thinking. I suppose I’m writing today to dispel some of the darkness that’s creeping up on me.

I start college next month. Classes start in 20 days, I’m gone in another ten days. Where did the time go? Where did my summer go? I wasted it away, and I was happy at the time, sometimes bored, but content. Looking back on it now, I feel this sense of regret. I know I wouldn’t have done anything anyway, even if I was warned, but that’s just part of learning, part of growing up. I think what I regret more is sitting on my bed a few weeks ago, calling every single person in my contacts list… and knowing not one of them would pick up. I made calls for as long as I could, I got through the entire contact list, but everyone either didn’t pick up or was busy doing something else with someone else. I asked for people to call back, one after another, an entire contact list full of people… and no one returned my calls. I send out emails and I get no replies.

Was I that meaningless? Did I never really matter? What was the point of my attitude if no one wanted to deal with me, to even call back. Of course, that was never the point. I always tried not to be the nice guy, but the guy who was reliable, who was around for you if you asked for him. Very few people asked. And of course, I never reached out for help. I always felt like if there was a problem, I could fix it myself. I would simply continue the way I had done things, never asking for help, trying to offer it, and isolating myself. When I tried again a few weeks later, it was harder. Even calling a single person suddenly turned into a monumental task for me. I was scared. Scared to be alone. Scared that being who I was had pushed away everyone I thought I could call friends. I couldn’t go through and call everyone on the next pass, afraid of being overbearing, afraid of being a bore, afraid that my attitude, my remarks, my caustic aura would eat right through whatever loose strands of friendship held us together.

Holding conversation was impossible. Summer orientation at college taught me that. I didn’t last longer than a few minutes with anyone, I kept overly silent or pretended to be that brash, loud boy that I was in high school. That sort of facade is and was tiring. I was reminded of just how incapable a person I am, how unsociable. When I got home, it was impossible for me to try and call anyone. I had sent out e-vites in the weeks before for a graduation party that my parents were throwing for me, whether I liked it or not. That was bad enough, as a mass message was not something I usually did, and now I was certain my detached attitude was going to frustrate people. When my parents decided to change the date, I had little choice but to accept, and once more I had to send out a mass message, informing everyone of a date change. That, in and of itself, was a horror. There was a protocol to this, one I had no idea about. I was most certainly messing things up, rending all the relationships I had tried to build over the years in two. So when time rolled around and I reached for my cellphone, I found that my fingers trembled every time I got close to the call button, my heart sinking deeper and deeper with each new answering machine. They don’t want to talk with me. They’re having fun without me. I’m not a necessary, or even wanted existence. I’m just in the way.

Now that date is coming around. My graduation party. My send-off party. What if no one shows up? What if my friends bail… I called around twenty to forty of them, can I really handle it if only two of them show up? Can I handle the jeers from my parent’s friends, the pitying looks, the insufferable silence? I’m hoping beyond hope that those people who haven’t replied show up. I don’t mind. I won’t mind. If I invited you and you show up without saying anything before, I won’t be mad. I won’t be disappointed. I swear I’ll be happy, so please, not just for my sake, for my parents too, please let enough people show up. Let things go by without a hitch. I don’t want to screw everything up again. I don’t want to lose my friends. I don’t want to look around and realize I’m alone.

Every time I pick up my phone, I am reminded. It’s become impossible to call. It’s become too hard to try. I don’t have that strength. I don’t have that power. And I know, this is a problem I could fix by myself. If I lie to myself even more, if I put myself out even more, if I pretend to be outspoken, questioning, a charismatic spokesman, I can keep going, I can survive. But will the scared, sentimental introvert ever get a chance to exist? Will I have to give up who I am in private in order to exist in the world? In society? Is that the price? Burying who I am, pretending to be someone else, living someone else’s dream, someone else’s life. I can’t even dream. I can’t even cry.

And so I welcome back the smiling fool, who smiles even as he’s cut to pieces. Hello World. It’s me again, I don’t know what I’m saying, but I hope you understand.

Just how did I end up in this situation… Aakurai frowned, his eyes sweeping across the circular room. It felt like a tower, with a winding staircase that led upwards into the sky, spiraling towards infinity, but he had no way of knowing. Where there should have been steps was only cold marble, shiny and slippery. Despite his efforts to climb, he could never get further than a few feet up. The tower was a sordid affair, with windows tinted in browns and blacks, none of the usual red or green you might expect from the Roman-style architecture. The room seemed to be 50 meters across, but there were no entrances or exits. The center had a raised circular section, about 30 meters across and rising off the ground about two or three feet, like a pedestal. Taking a deep breath, Aakurai gave a short scream and attempted to bound up the spiral staircase once more, gripping onto the edge when he stated slipping and attempting to pull himself up with his hands alone. With a yelp, the man’s hands came off the guard rail, swearing. His hands were bleeding freely now, punctured by the nasty bars that held up the rail. Rather than keeping people from falling off, it was more that it prevented people from advancing higher.

He buried his hands into his shirt, trying to keep the blood from soaking into the floor. The only light came from those stained windows, brown and black, and from the very top of the structure. At the very top of the spiral, a pinhole of light could peek through, and depending on the time of day, the light seemed to grow brighter or dim. He had been here for several hours, if the light was any help. It had gotten darker at first, despite it being bright. It made him think of dusk. Slowly, the light continued to dim, then slowly increase again. He could tell where the moon was, almost up to the very top now, by the general direction of all the light. Only a couple hours ago…

Only a couple of hours ago, he had fallen asleep at his desk, tired after a few long days. It had been around 6 or 7, and suddenly he had found himself on top of a building, surrounded by a post-apocalyptic landscape. The sky was brown, the earth was covered in muddy water, and buildings were desolate and broken, remnants of what they used to be. He could have sworn he saw a spark or two leap across a broken billboard, one of those fancy marquee-types, but before he could get a good look at everything, he tripped and fell backwards. No. His eyes clenched together, mind fresh from the pain, and he remembered. He hadn’t fallen… He had been pulled backwards. Something had been there. Something had been standing right behind him and had pulled him down, into this tower. He remembered his head hitting against marble and sliding… then darkness. When he woke up, he was here.

He grunted, tilting his head up to follow the echo as it bounded upwards, racing to escape this hole in the ground. Picking himself up off the ground, he cursed in his frustration again and launched his foot against the wall. How had he even ended up here, anyway? One moment he was home, in the States, and the next moment he was on top of that building looking out at the world, post-destruction. His ears twitched as a light hum seemed to resonate throughout the tower. Everything seemed a little brighter somehow, but not warm. Not like sunlight… No, it was colder somehow, more detached. There was something twisted about this light, as though it was only a copy, a reflection. Turning around, he found the pedestal bathed in light, a eerie blue glow covering the area. A solid mahogany desk was situated there, and as Aakurai stepped closer to the pedestal, he noticed that the edge of the pedestal, the 30 meter wide circle, seemed to have something scribbled across its border. With the moonlight shining its cold hand into the cylindrical cage, the man saw it more clearly. The border had depictions of skeletons and men burning in fires, of casualties, of riches, of royalty and of sorcery. It was a bit chilling, but he was intrigued. This was not something he had noticed before. Walking around the edge of the pedestal slowly, he continued to investigate the border, curiosity getting the better of him. Suddenly, his head jolted upwards as he stared across the pedestal. A desk? There hadn’t been a desk there before. The border for the pedestal was one thing, but an entire table appearing out of nowhere was another. His brown eyes narrowed, focusing on the man seated behind the desk.

He had a refined air about him, sitting comfortably and sipping red wine as he observed, his chocolate colored hat resting on his head. His face was angled, sharp and defined, with very short black hair and sharp brown eyes. He grinned a little, immaculate white teeth and pointy canines jeering Aakurai, mocking him silently. He was dressed in a suit, tie of dark red and pitch colored coat adorning his tall form. When he spoke, Aakurai wasn’t sure what to make of it. There was something sinister about it, but at the same time, something calming.

“Good evening.”

And that one statement let loose a fire in the brown-haired boy that was borne of hours of frustration. With a roar, he leapt up to the pedestal and over the desk, aiming to pin the man down and get him to explain. Slimy features or no, Aakurai was about ready to beat this high-class dumbass into the wall to get his answers. Unfortunately, when he grabbed, all he got was air. Tumbling into the ground, Aakurai jolted upwards and looked around. How could he have missed? Right before he had grabbed, the slime was right there, mere inches away. Spotting the suit across the pedestal, Aakurai was about to come up with some new plan, something else to deal with this whole situation, find some way to do this without raging. He was about to, except that the suit made a sound of derision, something like a ‘tsk’ or ‘tche’, as though he was disappointed in the man who stood before him. This suit had a file on him now, a manilla folder, with Aakurai’s face on it. Large, strong features hardened by years of life stared out, brown hair, brown eyes, and glasses. He was by no means a slob, but he definitely looked tired. It was, without a doubt, Aakurai. That fact alone made the captive’s mouth clamp closed, momentarily rendered speechless.

Illuminated by moonlight, the man looked to be more like a beast, toying with his prey. Aakurai gritted his teeth and stood, his eyes narrowed. His focus shifted to movement in the windows behind this suit, startled to see any more movement than just this suit and himself. There had been no one else here, but that shadow was something else as well. Looking out at the window, Aakurai’s eyes widened slightly. What used to be tinted windows with strange depictions was now something else entirely.

You know I have been searching for this one song/video on youtube for ages and I can not find the original version. Then I found it on my computer and now WordPress won’t let me upload it. Why do you do this to me, WordPress? Clearly, the solution is to go use the first video uploading site that comes up via google search. TinyPic, apparently.

Now then, onto the subject of cowardice. This is probably one of my more depressing entries, so if you’re not into that, are gonna freak out, or just don’t want to see this, skip it. I warned you.

Oh look Tiny Pic failed. Fantastic. Anyway, it is a good song I was going to link, but all the versions I found were either of sucky quality or did not have subs to them. Alas, woe is you.

So, onwards. Cowardice. I’m a coward. There, I said it. I’m pretty sure I am one, at the very least. I always can’t say what I actually think and my mouth says things I don’t mean. I’d like to say ‘I mean what I say’, but that’s not true. The truth is, ‘I occasionally mean what I say, but also compulsively lie’. But that’s a different subject. Much like how my writing style changed drastically in the month I haven’t updated. Strange. At any rate, back we go.

Cowardice. I can’t say what I think. I can’t say what I feel. I’m sitting here at 1:40 AM, hoping that someone will read this and hoping that no one will. I don’t know which is worse. I don’t know how to phrase what I feel, I don’t know how to say what I think. More and more, it’s easier to just let the ‘me’ that is me fade and simply slip right into the stream of people moving about their business. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about it, wouldn’t have to worry about my differences, wouldn’t have to worry about being unique. But that is cowardice.

I was in class today… My 3rd class of the day is a little rowdy. In that class, there are three people in the audition only top-level of choir. Coincidentally,we all sit in a row, one on either side of me. It’s an AP class and we already took our test, so now we’re basically messing around for the last month. So it came to pass that we somehow got to the suggestion that the people on my right and left [the two other kids in choir] should sing, and that the class wanted to hear them sing. Only those two. I was invisible somehow, no one looked at me, no one mentioned my name, no one bothered with me. Sitting between two people like that makes you feel like you’re inferior. Like you’re the worst. I know I’m not great, but to not be recognized, to not be noticed, to be so completely ignored is a horrible feeling. I’ve felt it before, but today I felt it clearly. Was I so low as to not even be in the same league as those two? Perhaps that is the case. I said nothing, I only smiled and listened to the people around me egg on my two seat neighbors to sing. I do not mind so much, as they are both quite skilled, but I mind a little bit, I must admit. I am a little jealous. Just a touch. Perhaps if the reason was not, “But you’re in the top level of choir, right? So you can and should sing for us!”, I would not be so troubled right now. Am I not worthy? Am I not noticeable? Or have I built up a reputation that you would rather not deal with me at all? Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps I’ve gotten to a point where no one wants to ask me for anything, to talk to me about anything. I said nothing and smiled. To explain my distress to anyone isn’t something I can do. Cowardice. I’m too afraid to say what I think, I’m too afraid to even make a joke about it. What if they say, “Well yeah, but those two are way better than you are.” or “But those two are amazing singers” or in fact, much of anything. At this point, nothing I can think of as a response can’t be turned into an implied insult directed at me. It seems like I’m just no good. Cowardice.

It’s the same elsewhere too. Physics. I want to be good at it. I want to understand it. But now, I’m not sure if I’m asking questions to try and understand the material more, or out of fear that if I stop asking questions, people will forget about me. Is that all I am? That one person who asks questions in class and tries to answer all the prompts? Cowardice. I’ve felt like keeping my hand down and not asking questions, but that too is Cowardice. There’s no escaping for me. I guess that’s my problem. In my life, I just wanted to exist and go with what I believed in, but now that I’m older, it’s getting harder and harder to keep at it. Society is pushing me down, or perhaps I’m just letting it, because I’m too afraid to fight back. Cowardice. Perhaps I feel like enough is enough already. That I’m done with that “one more time”, I’m done with the “No problem”, I’m done with all of that… Or perhaps that’s just more cowardice.

The rest of this story should generally be kept secret, but I guess I feel a need to write it out. I have edited it out and password protected it in a new post, which can be found here.

And so the Coward’s story ends, at least for now.

Right, right, I almost forgot. I think I forgot while I was writing this, and perhaps you might have as well, but that Coward is me. All I can show for myself is a little bit more Cowardice.